On Anniversary of Arab-Israeli War, a Palestinian Plea

LATRUN, West Bank — On the second night of the war in June 1967, Israeli forces captured the fort at Latrun, a West Bank enclave that protrudes like a half-blown bubble into Israeli territory. Israel had tried to take in 1948 — and failed.

Control of Latrun was considered essential because of its commanding position over the narrow Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor. Israel swiftly evicted the Palestinian residents of three villages in the area, reducing the houses to rubble.

It was here on the wooded slopes of Latrun on Tuesday that Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, chose to mark the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1967 war and to call for an end of Israeli occupation.

“I am sure many of you are asking why is Saeb Erekat bringing you to this point,” Mr. Erekat said to a group of diplomats and reporters as he stood against a backdrop of green fields, a reservoir and an Israeli settlement of red-roofed houses in the valley below.

“It is not because I want to demarcate the maps or finalize the negotiations,” he said, referring to the intensive efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry to get the Israelis and Palestinians to return to peace talks. “I just want to stand here and say, ‘It is 46 years later.’ ”

If nothing else, Mr. Erekat’s selection of Latrun spoke to the great distance between Palestinains and Israelis. Many Israelis consider Latrun to be an integral part of Israel. Drivers heading to either Tel Aviv or Jerusalem speed across the unmarked armistice lines along the main highway, slicing through several miles of West Bank territory and designated stretches of buffer zone, oblivious to the area’s fraught history.

A bridge has been built, and tunnels burrow through the hills in preparation for a high-speed Tel Aviv-Jerusalem railway. Attractions include a Trappist monastery and a forest popular with picnickers that covers the ruins of two of the villages. The Jewish settlement of Mevo Horon is built on the third, according to Palestinian officials. A police fort is now a memorial site for the Israeli military’s Armored Corps and a tank museum.

Some Israelis found Mr. Erekat’s visit jarring.

“The fact that they are raising the issue of Latrun is not a good sign,” said a senior Israeli official, insisting on anonymity because of the American diplomatic efforts to restart talks. The official said he was unable to imagine any peace agreement that did not place Latrun under Israeli sovereignty.

“It does not bode well for their intentions vis-à-vis Kerry,” the official said.

Although Palestinian officials have said that they expect Mr. Kerry to present a proposal by early or mid-June, Mr. Erekat declined on Tuesday to specify any time limits or target dates.

But there were signs that Israeli and Palestinian officials were anticipating the possible failure of the Kerry mission, with each side preparing to blame the other in order to avoid being held accountable themselves.

Mr. Erekat said the Palestinians had presented Mr. Kerry with their maps and answered every one of his questions. Mr. Erekat added that failure “should not be an option.”

Negotiations have been stalled for years. The Palestinians have demanded a complete halt in settlement construction and Israel’s recognition of the prewar 1967 lines as the basis for the borders of a Palestinian state before returning to talks — positions that have long been rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

“The ball is now in the Israeli court,” the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, told reporters on Tuesday.

A day earlier Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, laid responsibility for any potential failure on the Palestinian side, telling a parliamentary committee: “We are ready to go forward in the political process. The one who is avoiding it is Abu Mazen, by placing preconditions.” Abu Mazen is the name Mr. Abbas is popularly known as.

Shlomo Brom, director of a program on Israel-Palestinian relations at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a participant in past negotiations, said the start of the blame game “reflects the low expectations on both sides.”

“Abu Mazen does not believe that negotiations with Netanyahu will lead to results, so he wants some guarantees, like the principle of the 1967 lines as a basis,” Mr. Brom said. “That allows the Israeli side to play the card of preconditions,” he said, adding, “The question is how Kerry handles it.”

Addressing the AJC Global Forum, a gathering of Jewish advocates in Washington, Mr. Kerry said this week that “cynicism has never solved anything.”

“It’s never given birth to a state, and it won’t,” he said.

“What happens in the coming days will actually dictate what happens in the coming decades,” he added. “We’re running out of time. We’re running out of possibilities. And let’s be clear: If we do not succeed now — and I know I’m raising those stakes — but if we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance.”

Past proposals for Latrun, official and unofficial, have included land swaps and suggestions to split the areas demarcated as buffer zone between Israel and a future Palestinian state. But Palestinian officials have said — at least as an opening position for negotiations — that they regard all of the buffer zone as Palestinian territory, and Mr. Netanyahu has never publicly articulated his readiness for land swaps.